The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is a miserable stretch of road. The BQE, as New ­ Yorkers call it, has narrow lanes, no hard shoulder, countless potholes, and is usually one long traffic jam. As sources of artistic inspiration go, it’s an unlikely one; but when eccentric singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to write a symphony about the city he calls home, he immediately turned to this crumbling concrete flyover.

“It inspires loathing, resentment, anger,” says Stevens of the BQE. He calls the work “a wilful romance with an object of scorn”. If anyone can write a great song about a traffic jam, Stevens can. In the past, he has taken inspiration from the novelist Saul Bellow, the industrial decay of Detroit, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and the ghost of poet Carl Sandburg. The results often start as simple folk songs, then flower into ornate chamber pop, with an array of banjos, horns, oboes and glockenspiels.

According to the website Metacritic, which collates reviews in the press, Stevens’s concept album Illinois (the second in his Fifty States Project) was the most critically praised record of 2005. When the New York Times columnist David Brooks decried hipster parents who “force-feed Brian Eno, Radiohead and Stevens” to their toddlers, it was proof he had reached the mainstream – despite releasing his records on Asthmatic Kitty, a tiny label he founded with his stepfather.

When we meet, Stevens has been driving up and down the hated road all day. His BQE symphony, just released as an album, forms the soundtrack to a film he made about the expressway. Shot on 8mm and 16mm film, it has the warm, fuzzy look of an old home movie. The score has echoes of Debussy, Gershwin and Copland; it’s the unabashedly optimistic sound of an earlier era, a time when New York’s skyscrapers sprang up, and one of the world’s most famous skylines was born. “It’s excessively romantic, with lots of dramatic, sweeping gestures,” Stevens says of the work. “I wanted it to be overblown, a little heightened – transforming an object of resentment into an object of beauty.”

Stevens cites Stravinsky and Strauss as inspirations, adding modestly that he stole from every composer he studied at Hope College in Michigan, for his arts degree. “I don’t have an incredible facility for composing and arranging,” he says. “I’m really slow and clumsy. All I have is my ear, and all that time spent obsessing, writing with piano and guitar.”

As he produces and arranges his own albums, playing most of the instruments himself, this humility rings a little false, but Stevens certainly had an unconventional education. His name was chosen by the leader of a religious community called Subud, which his parents briefly belonged to. His first school, following the principles of philosopher Rudolf Steiner, taught him to sew before he could count: Stevens still makes his own stage costumes, among them cheerleader outfits and angel wings. He later rebelled against this permissive upbringing by becoming a Christian. His faith has informed many of his best songs, particularly on his 2004 breakthrough album Seven Swans, which closes with a description of the transfiguration of Christ.

During his recent US tour, Stevens was swooned over by men and women alike, particularly when at his most vulnerable, singing Casimir Pulaski Day, about the death of his teenage sweetheart (gender unspecified). It was an odd gig, in which he tested out some new songs. These turned out to be sprawling, unexpectedly noisy progressive rock. At one point, he even disappeared into an extended guitar solo. “The new songs are definitely more aggressive,” he says. “I’ve been trying to challenge myself to be more explicit. I’ve always liked punk rock and Sonic Youth. I make that music privately, but I’ve never released it.”

His Fifty States Project, which he announced in 2003 as an epic song cycle about every American state, hasn’t quite got off the ground. It began with an album about Michigan, then came Illinois, but there it stopped. “I have no qualms about admitting it was a promotional gimmick,” he laughs.

His next two projects are an improvised synth-based album called Music for Insomnia, and a new string-quartet version of Enjoy Your Rabbit, his electronica record about Chinese zodiac signs. “I’ve feverishly, consistently, obsessively recorded,” he says. “So now I’ve begun this self-imposed hiatus, where I’ll stop releasing records and focus on writing. It’s healthy for me to shake off all these pretensions and these epic conceptual endeavours.”

You Are The Blood – new track from Sufajjn Stevens, we havent heard of since Songs for Christmas from 2006.

Chris Garneau is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist, whose distinct musical style combines elements of folk, Americana, pop, baroque, and carnival music. Garneau cites Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Nico, and Chan Marshall, among others, as musical influences.

Garneau, a native of Boston, lived with his family in Paris during grade school, and later New Jersey before moving to New York City. Garneau discovered a love of music at a young age while learning to play piano. After high school, Garneau briefly attended Berklee Music School in Boston, but left after completing one term and moved to Brooklyn, NY.

Not Nice (mp3)
Black and Blue (mp3)
Relief (video)

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Ablum: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Song: 4/10

Bet you got it all planned right
Bet you never worry
never even feel a fright
Bet you got it all planned right
Never fit to worry
never even feel a fright.

Single sleeps alone
and I know you don’t really mind
Five years by your side
so I know you really don’t mind

Don’t you evah,
be down,
I said don’t evah,
because it’s gonna keep ‘em hanging around’

Never
deep down
I said don’t evah
because it’s gonna keep ‘em hanging around’

Don’t you never think it’s right
Bet you think you had to but it doesn’t feel right
Bet you never think it feels right
Famous-sounding words make your head feel light

Petals getting picked
with the love-yous
and the love-you-nots

Five years going by
Everyone is standing on their side

Don’t you evah,
be down,
I said don’t evah,
because it’s gonna keep ‘em hanging around’

Never
deep down
I said don’t evah
because it’s gonna keep ‘em hanging around’

Don’t you evah,
be down,
I said don’t evah,
because it’s gonna keep ‘em hanging around’

Five years going by
everyone is standing on their side

Never
deep down
I said don’t ever
cause it’s gonna keep him hanging around

Five years going by
everyone is standing on their side

I said don’t ever need to worry
cause it’s gonna feel all right

Evah

don’t fool yourself
she was heartache from the moment that you met her
my heart feels so still
as i try to find the will to forget her somehow
oh i think i’ve forgotten her now

her love is a rose dead and dying
dropping her petals and man i know
all full of wine the world before her
but sober with no place to go

don’t fool yourself
she was heartache from the moment that you met her
my heart is frozen still
as i try to find the will to forget her somehow
she’s somewhere out there now

oh my tears fall down as i tried to forget
the love was a joke from the day that we met
all of the words all of her men
all of my pain when i think back to when
remember her hair as it shone in the sun
it was there on the bed when i knew what she’d done
tell yourself over and over you wont ever need her again

don’t fool yourself
she was heartache from the moment that you met her
oh my heart is frozen still
as i try to find the will to forget her somehow
she’s out there somewhere now

oh
she was heartache from the day that i first met her
my heart is frozen still
as i try to find the will to forget you somehow
cause i know you’re somewhere out there right now

You can’t hold it to tight
These matters of security
You don’t have to be wound so tight
Smoking on the balcony
But it’s that sleaze in a park
You women you have no self-control,
The angels remark outside
You were known for insatiable means
I don’t know a thing

I’ve seen love, and I followed the speeding of starlight
I’ve seen love, and I followed the speeding of starswept night

Yeah pace is the trick

And to all the destruction in men
Well I see you as you take your pride
My lioness your defenses seem wise I can impress
And detentions are demised, my lioness
Can’t you hurt it some, think I hurt it

I’ve seen love, and I followed the speeding of starlight
I’ve seen love and I followed the speeding of starswept night

And now I select you, slow down I let you
See how I stun, see how I stun
And now I select you, slow down I let you
See how I stun, see how I stun

And to all the destruction in men
And to all the corruption in my hand
And now I select you, slow down I let you
See how I stun see how I stun
And now I select you, slow down I let you
I always follow the speeding of starswept night
You don’t hold, I can’t go on

Starting with the release of White Ladder, Gray began to make significant use of computer-generated music to accompany his voice and acoustic instrumentation, a technique which differentiates him from many of his peers.

His musical career received early support from a dedicated Republic of Ireland fan base. His first two albums A Century Ends (1993) and Flesh (1994) made Gray a popular in folk-rock circles. Third album, Sell, Sell, Sell was released in 1996 and this was time when he was seen use his now-trademark blend of folk, alternative rock and electronics for the first time.

His breakthrough into the pop mainstream came in year 1998 with the worldwide release of his fourth album, White Ladder. In November 2002, Gray released A New Day at Midnight. The new release did not receive the same critical acclaim as the previous one, but still went straight in at Number One. In March 2007, Gray released the compilation album Shine: The Best of the Early Years.